Buying a new TV: I came to the realization that my manroom, while great, was inadequately equipped with a mere 50″ screen. So I decided to go big (then go home). Spent a long while researching options, ended up with the Samsung PN63C590, Samsung PN63C8000, and the LG 60PK950 as my top three choices. Two of these three had 3D and Internet connectivity, the other was just a big honking 63″ screen. I went with the big honking screen and skipped on the frills. I realized I don’t much like the current 3D experience in theaters or homes (makes me a little nauseous), and the likelihood that I’d want to frequently watch 3D at home was pretty low. Regarding Internet apps, I’m not really impressed with most of the available apps, and I’m not very convinced that the current platforms won’t be obsolete within 12-18 months (looks like I’m not the only one who feels that way on both topics).

In a nutshell – the TV is awesome, manroom now operating at near-100% efficiency.

Cord-Cutting: So my new TV is great, and also huge. And there’s an interesting downside to it being huge – the gaffes of lower quality video are worse than ever. As soon as everything was hooked up, I turned on the NHL HD channel (sports channels seem to be at the top of the quality spectrum in the HD channel lineup). All I could see were the jaggies and other terrible aftereffects of the highly compressed video Comcast delivers to my house. So how did I make my TV look good? I turned on my Xbox! I think this “faux” HD experience is something that actually could cause cord-cutting in 2011 – far more than Smart TVs will. More on this over on the Stage Two blog.

Smart TVs: Speaking about Smart TVs (the continuity in this post would astound my high school English teacher), I read an article on “What Smart TVs need to Succeed” with the highlights being: Unlimited Content Access, Extensive Use of Apps, and Immersive Experience. I think I understand that perspective, but I also think it is missing the boat. People tend to compare Smart TVs to Smart Phones. If you recall, the first several *years* of smart phones were some truly terrible products. But when it comes to phones, that’s “ok” because they are low cost (relative to TVs) and owners expected to replace them in fairly short cycles. TVs, on the other hand, are expensive and consumers tend to replace infrequently (unless of course they have awesome manrooms that warrant the upgrade). A generation of underwhelming Smart TVs will likely put a damper on the entire industry. What Smart TVs really need to succeed is great, intuitive, television-like user experiences. And I will be blunt by saying none of them do it right now. And I don’t see this changing for at least the first half of 2011. Which is why we’ve got a new thing cooking in Stage Two’s labs, all about making a really good TV user experience. Will show ya next year.

Del.icio.us shutdown: Just like everyone else in the Web 2.0 era, I used Delicious for about 45 minutes back in the mid 2000’s, then stopped. I know there’s still a solid fan base, and a lot more people found it a lot more useful than I did, but Yahoo’s let it languish since about 6 months after purchase. Other than buying a better domain for it, it doesn’t seem like the company cared about it one bit. And now they are shutting it down. I think this is pretty terrible, and as I tweeted… “irony of delicious shut-down? bartz could’ve made only $46.2M last year and still had a full-time TEAM on *improving* the product…” Shame on them. I’m sure there’s some great spreadsheet somewhere that shows why its the smart business decision, but the audacity of the entire Yahoo situation is just plain infuriating. Highly recommended reading: Thomas Hawk’s letter to Carol Bartz.

Online privacy: The entire concept of privacy is up for grabs these days. Some feel it’s dead, some feel it must be protected at all costs. I sit closer to the “protect my privacy” camp, and as a result am encouraged to see the government taking some form of action. Unfortunately, I don’t know how much actual good it will do, but since the industry isn’t self-regulating, I have to assume it can’t make things too much worse. I remain convinced that the mega-millionaires who run the companies who effectively control our online privacy have the incorrect moral incentives in place, especially considering they can pay their way out of the issues the rest of us face.

Every year I predict, every year I get at least one thing right. And many wrong. But that’s the fun part, right? This year instead of categorizing based on the technology area, I’m going to organize based on my own scale of how crazy the prediction itself is…

The No-Brainers
Stuff that is almost definitely going to happen. Except the ones that don’t…

Twitter growth levels off, though Twitter usage increases. I actually wouldn’t be surprised to see the churn rate equal the signup rate as I believe Twitter still has a massive problem with getting new users enchanted with the service.

A new version of the iPhone comes out that is incrementally better than the 3GS.

CES 2010 exceeds expectations, either in the form of interesting new gadgets or industry-wide product/technology launches.

BlackBerry overhauls their “app store” to make it more iPhone-y.

Mac OSX market share continues to rise.

Superslim TVs (like the Samsung LEDs – drool!) become the hot category for displays. Many of them are “connected” to various Internet services.

Sounds FeasiblePredictions that are a little more “out there” but don’t require any major convincing.

Zynga files to go public, and the entire “social gaming” category gets even more unbelievably outrageous.

Yahoo! begins some kind of realistic turnaround. They have far too much foot traffic and too many good properties to continue to fail for so long.

Hint to Yahoo! – reinvest in your Flickrs, Deliciouses, and other “interesting” stuff that you are good at, and stay OFF the television and other places that you are not good at.

One PC maker emerges from the trenches with a really well-designed laptop that actually can stand up against a Macbook enough to make people take notice. (repeat from ’09).

“Real-time Web” loses steam as a meme. While I’m personally very bullish on the impacts and possibilities, it’s far too niche and far too unimportant to “regular folks” to care about.

Probably same for “Cloud Computing”, but since everyone’s just confusing it with “The Internet” it might have more staying power.

Apple releases stats on iPhone/iPod/iTunes/app store that are just mind-blowing.

4G/LTE networks spread faster than expected, become viably competitive to the mainstream consumer within the year.

The term “Social Media” finally begins to fade across all industries other than Social Media Mavens, Gurus, and Wizards. The latter reach level 7 and learn how to cast User-Generated Fireball and Community Driven Magic Missile.

All non-Apple tablets are craptastic. Ditto for touchscreen phones.

3DTV gets embedded into lots and lots of TVs, much to the chagrin of consumers who don’t feel the need to look like that goofy guy in Back to the Future, even in the comfort of their own living rooms.

Note that in my opinion the only thing that really makes 3D “work” in the home is sports. And even that’s a long shot.

Twitter gets acquired by Microsoft. Yeah, I’m being specific here, but it’s the only logical acquisition, and Microsoft’s got deep enough pockets and have failed at virtually all things Internet. In a nutshell, Ballmer wants to bring sexy back.

The Apple Tablet ships in 2010. Sure all the “in the know” folks are convinced this must happen, but most of them said that about 2009 (and/or that Apple would ship a netbook).

Some kind of flexible-display type of device is announced (might even ship). If I had to hunch (and I of course do), it’d either come from Apple or as a new Kindle.

All versions of Rock Band and Guitar Hero in 2010 fail to exceed sales stats of 2009 or 2008.

Hey guys – remember how that Who Wants to be a Millionaire show was super popular? Then they started running it 4+ nights a week? Then it moved to daytime? There’s something called a “saturated market”. Stop with all the specialty versions and get back to improving the base game, which you can sell add-ons to.

Cisco buys a few more gadget makers and technology providers in their attempt to own the Digital Home. In each case they continue to exhibit poor timing and overpay for slightly outdated platforms.

Can I get a hit of that stuff?Things that are just plain unrealistic, but I’m saying them anyway. This way if they happen I can say I was the first to say them.

Apple does not ship a tablet. Yes, I contradict the above point, since I do think “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” holds up in general. However, it is Apple, and this is a terrible device category, and Steve Jobs hates doing things crappily. BTW, you really should read this piece if you are even remotely following the Apple Tablet news – it’s extremely well written and insightful.

Facebook buys Twitter. It’s not really all that out there as a concept (although I’d wager the personalities behind both companies are big forces against it). Both companies need to continue rapid growth. Both companies need to create lots of revenue. Both companies want to be “empires”. There are many overlapping aspects, but the combined entity could realistically “own” the social network.

A new game console launches. I put this in the long-shot category because nobody is really incented to create a new console right now. The Xbox 360 is finally hitting it’s strides; the PS3 has way too much cost to recoup, and the Wii is enjoying it’s ride. If I had to guess, I’d wager on a 4th party entrant (Samsung?). If one of the big three, I’d pick the next console as a “Wii HD”.

A “Lifestreamer” device comes to market. It’s not quite a phone, but it’s always on, always recording, and has amazing synch with some Web service. Never takes pictures, only video. Able to “Tag” moments. Has real-time streaming capabilities.

The iPadTabletMacMacTouchiSlate will supposedly launch next year, and with it comes the end of an era. For that statement to make any sense, I should probably backtrack a bit and give a little explanation. While considering the impact of this product (should it even exist beyond the labs in Cupertino, that is), I’ve been thinking back on the history and evolution of gadgets. Incidentally, I’m only considering electronic gadgets, but not including computers (or laptops) nor kitchen-related items (pretty much everything in the modern kitchen is some kind of gadget). I’ve grouped them (in my own mind) into three major phases, and in pure Tolkienish geeky wonderfulness, I’m calling them Ages.

The First Age

Definition: For sake of discussion, I’ll define the First Age of Gadgets as starting with calculators and LCD watches (and, of course, calculator watches). Sticklers will quickly point out something I’m missing, but in my opinion that’s when the concept of “gadgets” really got kicking. These products (1) required batteries and (2) did one thing, typically pretty well. These early gadgets were typically fairly functional in nature, not very gimmicky or showy. They were also workhorses as compared to modern products – you can drop most “old school” products and not fear for significant damage (probably directly related to LED or single-line LCD outputs).

Timeframe: roughly the early 1970s all the way into the 1990s. That said, many products came out in the ’90s that would still be considered First Age gadgets, per the definition above.

Defining gadget: tie between Walkman and Game Boy. Both effectively defined a product category, and still do to this day in most respects. It’s far too easy to argue that the iPod is just a “modern” Walkman, and ditto for the DS/PSP.

Memorable gadgets: Mattel Football, Atari 2600, NES, Speak and Spell (the first DSP was inside it), the Polaroid instant camera, and HP calculators (they could graph stuff!), DiscMan (also great, but not as revolutionary as the WalkMan).

The Second Age

Definition: In a nutshell: USB connectivity and/or card reader integration. Slightly more detailed: the Second Age of gadgets is about products that were able to connect and/or share data with a computer (but did not include WiFi) and/or cell phones. Gadgets started becoming a little more pervasive, a little more mainstream, a lot more pop culture. In addition to the gadgets themselves, the category of gadget accessories really began to boom (chargers, carrying case, rechargeable batteries, etc). This was also the dawn of the gadget blogs. I asked Peter Rojas, founder of Gizmodo, if he could recall why he launched the site: “It was an experiment, something Nick and I started almost by accident. I don’t think either of us thought blogging would become as big as it did. People are a LOT more interested in gadgets now than when I started Gizmodo in 2002 – it’s become part of pop culture.”

Timeframe: late 1990s to mid-2000’s. Obviously there were definitely earlier cell phones and we still have completely disconnected gadgets coming to market today, but this is still a fairly definable time. Interesting, I referred to this timeframe in another “look back” kind of post last year.

Defining gadget: tough call, but it’s the iPod. No other device was so utterly perfect at the concept of end-to-end interaction between the device and the computer.

Defining gadget: This is a debatable call, but I’m going to go with the BlackBerry. It truly ushered in the notion of a converged device with phone and Internet access, and was the major game changer of usage behaviors with regards to mobile devices. Obviously the iPhone has had its own impact, but one could argue that (1) the BlackBerry is a clear success, and (2) the iPhone might never have come out without it.

Memorable gadgets: iPhone (see, it’s there!), Xbox 360, Harmony 880 remote, Slingbox (disclosure: I built it, so I’m biased, but I think it belongs on the list!), Sonos (disclosure: I have worked with Sonos in the past, but again, I think it’s hard to argue that any other product has so well integrated the Internet and personal media and home gadgets), Eye-Fi (like it or don’t, but it certainly opened new concepts), the Flip, the Kindle. Oh, and of course the Twitterpeek (just kidding).

The Fourth Age

Regardless of the iSlate, we are at the brink of a new generation of gadgets that utterly change the way we think of technology and mobility. Internet access and data synchronization/sharing will be considered ubiquitous and pervasive across new devices. I consider gadgets like the FitBit right on the fringe of what I’m talking about – designed for a connected life, but don’t focus on a typical way of being used. My expectations for what I’m calling the Fourth Age of gadgets center around three major changes and improvements in displays, inputs, and power.

Displays: I assume we’ll be seeing flexible display surfaces (folding, roll-up, etc) that change the way we physically interact with a device. The concept of a hard, flat screen (even a touchable one) seems very outdated to me. I think the real revolutionary tablet will be the first one with some form of flexible display (and my money’s on Apple for making this happen). I also foresee better use of microprojectors to remove the need for an on-board display at all.

Input: Next generation products should have inputs much more interesting than just a keyboard. Let’s assume the concept of gestures is one good starting point, but it really needs to be taken further than the pinching and scrolling effect. I’m also anticipating more use of optical recognition (like Natal uses) to simple “watch” the user control a device – gestures are even more interesting when you don’t have to touch a screen. Voice recognition and input is basically already here, but yet to be fully put to work (thanks David for that suggestion). Another is more interesting uses of accelerometers and motion sensors, where a gadget is interacted with simply by how you move it around.

Power: I consider batteries, even the most modern Li-Ion ones, one of the key deficiencies in gadget design. Batteries create massive inefficiencies in cost structure, environmental impact, and product usage. As a stopgap solution, I am a fan of the wireless charging concepts, but that’s really just a big bandaid in my opinion. We are right around the corner from making rechargeable fuel cell based devices very feasible. This is a good step, but I’m anticipating some more monumental leaps. As per my thoughts on flexible displays, I think the materials sciences engineers out there are cooking up some very innovative solutions to make gadgets last longer, weigh less, and be notably cheaper to produce.

For a little sanity check, I asked Josh Topolsky, Editor-in-Chief of Engadget, his opinion:

“I think we’re just starting to scratch the surface of what’s possible in mobile computing (non-laptop, non-traditional computing, that is). Smartphones are in their infancy, tablets are non-existent; what we’ve seen in demos only just begins to show the potential in this space. When manufacturers can add the horsepower and bandwidth needed to those devices without sacrificing battery life or design, our perception of computing will shift dramatically. Multitouch interfaces and UI concepts that involve more than just moving boxes around on a screen will completely upend our ideas about how you interact with the machine; gadgets like the iPhone and Surface have already sparked that fire. In just a few years (say, less than five), I expect that using a laptop or desktop computer will seem quaint, or worse: antiquated.”

Personally, I’m excited about the future. I’m just ever-so-bored of the current state of gadget affairs. The iPhone has just sucked the life out of real innovation, and everyone’s playing a pretty boring game of catchup, with the occasional attempt to one-up Apple. The problem is the giants of CE are acting like big sluggish organizations, and the cost structures have been prohibitive to enable startups to find easy paths to success, with few exceptions to these rules. Hence why we in the Third Age we have One Phone to Rule Them All. But 10 years ago we’d have bet on Sony, not Apple, to lead the revolution. I wonder who will lead us on the road ahead (and if we’ll see it at CES 2010?).

Kinda enjoying the “wrapup” post concept. I feel less pressure to blog, and take a bit more time to collect my thoughts (instead of jumping on board any given meme as it happens). Would definitely like to know from my reader(s?) if this is harder content to consume than more frequent, shorter posts.

Dell Buying Palm

This rumor’s been floating for a while. At the Building43/TechCrunch party I was told it was a certainty, though the NY Times thinks it’ll never happen. At this stage in the mobile game, I think Palm does need an acquisition if it wants to survive as a big player, either that or needs a drastic overhaul/downsizing until they think like a startup again (which really is the position they are in). Dell’s a decent suitor, though I’d doubt they’d really escalate the brand to the level it needs. I’d rather see a merger with Motorola’s mobile group, as they have the true infrastructure needed to compete at the high stakes table, and could really use an injection of creativity and new technology (no more RAZRs guys).

Facebook URLs

This whole week Facebook did a replay of Oklahama in the late 1800s (including allowing “key journalists” in sooner than us lame users). The stats last night were impressive, though I’m still sitting here scratching my head on the whole thing a little. I’m assuming FB plans to do some serious SEO work, enabling those who grabbed useful terms like “carpenter” (no, I don’t know that guy) to generate a little business out of them. That said, some useful terms like “sanfranciscosushi” are still up for grabs, so enterprising folks should put their creative hats on and get going. I didn’t take my name yet (having a unique name makes that kinda easy) because I just don’t get the value to me personally. Googling Jeremy Toeman always gets me, as does the first page or two for just Toeman. Not to say I didn’t try a few names to see how they’d feel…

nah… not quite right.

Building43

My friend Robert Scoble started working at Rackspace (the place where we host Legacy Locker, btw) a few months back, and he’s been dropping hints about this “Building43” thing for a while now. This week he formally unveiled it during the TechCrunch 4th birthday party down in Palo Alto. First and foremost, thanks Robert and Mike for some amazingly good BBQ food – oh, and your contributions to the tech industry blah blah blah ;). So Building43 is designed as a resource for entrepreneurs and big companies alike to participate and gain feedback and insight from the tech community at large. It’s an ambitious goal, and I wish them a lot of luck. My biggest advice to them is to really focus on the user experience, as right now I found the site a little confusing to navigate (despite my personal familiarity with all the technologies they are using, like FriendFeed). If it’s tough for me to find things, I can’t imagine what it’s like for those new to it.

Project Natal

Microsoft introduced “Project Natal” at E3, and there’s a rumor circulating that instead of thinking of it as a new component to the Xbox 360, it might be its own console. I love the idea of using motion capture as a video game controller (or remote control or any other kind of interface), but I think that’s where my love ends. As an idea. Here’s the issue – it’s not good enough if it’s 99% accurate. Why? Because the 1 time in 100 that you shoot instead of duck, or block instead of jump, or whatever mistake it makes is going the about the last time you play seriously. Fundamental to every good user interface is absolutely perfectly reliable controls, with proper feedback mechanisms to the user. With a motion controller, the moment the game doesn’t do what you wanted it to do, it’s all over. Trust is lost, and the “magic moment” is replaced by dislike, then eventually anger. I saw a tweet that I think encapsulated the issue perfectly: “Project Natal is headed to the uncanny valley.”

Content Consumption

I recently realized I don’t read any blogs anymore. I do a lot of searching. I follow some folks on Twitter and/or FriendFeed. But I almost never just go to sites like Engadget or TechCrunch nor friends of mine like Dave Zatz or Michael Gartenberg and just read. And based on looking at the analytics for many of my clients’ web sites, I’m thinking I’m very much not alone. There’s too much content, and just not enough ways to organize it. If I were an enterprising lad, I’d be spending a lot of time figuring out how to help people deal with content overload in a very useful manner. The right tool needs to combine all the potential sources a user wants, and give lots of ways to customize and filter it. Google Reader isn’t enough, nor is FriendFeed, nor is Facebook. I’ve got a hunch there’s a lot of opportunity for an excellent “get signal out of my noise” service, and it’s probably something people would pay for.

Have a great weekend everyone, I’m heading back to toil in the garden where I can be really productive.

I’ve been told I’m a ‘long format blogger’ – most of my posts are fairly long (typically overly so). As a result my posts tend to take a while to write, which means I need to block out (too much) time to get them up. And I seem to have less and less free time all the time these days, plus by the time I’m writing something, it seems like a thousand others have already written something related to what I’d write. While I know I shouldn’t feel biased by others’ writings, at the end of the day I feel that if I’m not saying something original, what’s the point?

So in an effort to get some thoughts across, I’m going to try to do the occasional “roundup” post on a few topics all at once. This is the first of said posts.

Rock Band, Beatles Edition
I’m not sure which game I’m more excited about, this or Modern Warfare 2. I love The Beatles music, and I love Rock Band, so that’s a huge win. Plus I like the idea of a non-hard core version of Rock Band. If you haven’t seen the preview, check it out here:

Social Gaming
The new enhancements to the Xbox Dashboard include integration with Facebook and Twitter. I have a feeling most of the features will be overkill and rarely used by the majority of Xbox owners, but there is a clear improvement needed to integrating social networking and gaming. The key missing element in my opinion is an easier way to find your friends within the Xbox Live experience. Hopefully direct integration with the services I use for networking will help me find and connect with people in my gaming world.

beeTVA startup raised another $8 million to provide recommendations for watching TV shows. This is now 10 consecutive years of me watching companies try to enter this space and fail. Further, these guys are doing deals with cable and set-top companies, two segments notoriously perilous for relying on for a business to succeed. Who knows, maybe these guys will find that magic touch, but my hunch is (a) there isn’t a real problem in this space, and (b) making a sustainable income stream will be extremely challenging.

Crunchpad
I applaud the crunch team for their efforts on building the Crunchpad. But I have concerns over the device itself. First, the market – I don’t see a web tablet (at any price) effectively replacing a laptop for simple surfing, it doesn’t make sense. Second, the usage – it’s either going to be tiring to hold it up, or it goes into the lap, which again, brings the laptop back into the scene. Ultimately I see it as a “bread machine” type of gadget (purchased, used for a little while, then slowly migrating out of daily life until it gets regifted). I’ll be curious to see what comes of it.

Palm PreReviews are saying it’s solid. Sprint’s said they anticpate a shortage. I believe both statements are accurate. But I also believe it will never supplant the iPhone or BlackBerry, and I also believe the initial orders placed by Sprint are in low volumes relative to those products. I think the product is probably going to be pretty solid, but I think it’s too-little, too-late for Palm. I know back in the day I didn’t think people would switch to AT&T for the iPhone (I was wrong), but I can’t imagine iPhone people switching to Sprint for the Pre. Maybe I’ll be wrong again…

Well, that’s my first attempt at a “ripped from the headlines” kind of post. Feedback, comments, and spirited debate are very welcome.

About

Jeremy Toeman is VP Products for CNET. He has over 15 years experience in the convergence of digital media, mobile entertainment, social entertainment, smart TV and consumer technology. Prior ventures and projects include Viggle, Dijit Media, Sling Media, VUDU, Clicker, DivX, Rovi, Mediabolic, Boxee, and many other consumer technology companies. This blog represents nothing but his personal opinion and outlook on things.